Kevin Von Erich
Kevin started wrestling in 1976. He spent most of his career wrestling for his father's promotion, World Class Championship Wrestling. Kevin's natural athletic ability and good looks made him one of the promotion's biggest stars. He achieved great success in the company both as a singles and tag team wrestler, often participating in many of the company's high-profile feuds. Kevin was also known for wrestling barefoot, highly unusual in a sport where almost all wrestlers wear high-topped boots. World Class announcers often jokingly referred to him as "The Barefoot Boy" on WCCW broadcasts. In 1980, Kevin Von Erich made his only wrestling appearance in the WWF on January 21 against Johnny Rodz, in a match that he won. A feud between the Von Erichs and Freebirds developed in December 1982. During WCCW's annual Christmas show in 1982, Kerry Von Erich faced Ric Flair for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship inside of a steel cage with Michael Hayes acting as a special referee. Near the end of the match, Flair shoved Hayes, which resulted in Hayes punching him. Hayes then tried to place Kerry on top of Flair to make the three count. Von Erich refused to do so since it wasn't the "Texas thing to do", which led to a brief shoving match and argument between the two. Hayes, disgusted with the situation, told Terry Gordy, who had been assigned as the gatekeeper, to open the cage door. As Hayes was about to leave, Von Erich was attacked from behind by Ric Flair, with the former accidentally hitting Hayes and knocking him out of the cage. The angle was written as having neither Hayes nor Gordy being aware that Kerry was shoved into Hayes. As Kerry was getting to his feet inside the ring, that was the signal for Gordy to slam the cage door shut, hitting Kerry on the head and costing him the championship. The Freebirds immediately became the top heels in the company, due to the belief of many fans that their actions cost one of their local heroes the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Throughout the next several years, the Freebirds and Von Erichs engaged in numerous high-profile matches that were very physical in nature with the various members of each group feuding over various championships within the promotion. This line of drama ended when Kevin's brother David Von Erich, died from acute enteritis of the upper intestine. This broke up the symmetry of the wrestling rivalry, though eventually the remaining brothers went on to wrestle individually, with varying degrees of success. Sixteen months after his brother joined the World Wrestling Federation, Kevin wrestled a dark match on December 2, 1991 at a Wrestling Challenge taping in Corpus Christi, TX where he faced and defeated Brian Lee. On October 3, 2005, Kevin made an appearance on the WWE Raw Homecoming show alongside other WWE Hall of Famers. Later that night, as Dusty Rhodes and the WWE Hall of Famers were gathered in the ring, Rob Conway came out and interrupted Rhodes. This eventually led to Conway's beatdown by several Hall of Famers, in which Kevin used the legendary Iron Claw on Conway, to the raves of the partisan Dallas, Texas crowd. Jim Ross said afterwards that he never thought he would live to see the Iron Claw again. On April 4, 2009, Kevin represented the Von Erich family as they were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by Michael Hayes. On April 2, 2016 Kevin appeared at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony to discuss his relationship with The Fabulous Freebirds.Category:WWE Hall of Fame Inductees Category:WCCW Television Champions